Rye Harbour Sailing Club’s £75,000 cash boost

Rye Harbour Sailing Club (RHSC) was among 148 sports projects across the country to benefit from a share of £9m of lottery funding from Sport England’s Inspired Facilities fund.

Charles Bronsdon, club commodore, said: “We are delighted to have secured this investment, which means we can upgrade the quality of our premises and encourage a higher rate of people especially pupils from schools and other youth groups to come and experience sailing at our great location at The Point, Rye Harbour. It is the cornerstone of our strategy to have an outstanding club for the 2012 Olympics’ legacy.”

Rye’s MP, Amber Rudd, said: “I’m really pleased Sport England has invested in Rye Harbour Sailing Club. This region has a great maritime heritage and I hope these new facilities will encourage many more people to join the club and take to the water.”

Since 2011, Inspired Facilities has been helping breathe new life into tired community sports facilities and converting existing buildings into venues suitable for grassroots sport.

RHSC’s grant will be used to build a new shower block with changing rooms and toilets, which will open up the sailing facilities to a wider section of the community, including schools and other youth sailing projects, as well as Sailability.

Apart from a new building, the improvements will include a toilet for people with disabilities, private changing areas with seven showers and an area for all sailors to shower and change after a race.

Charles Johnston, Sport England property director, said: “The Inspired Facilities Fund has had a huge impact on grassroots sport across the country. Since 2011, we’ve invested £102m into more than 1,920 projects to improve and refurbish sports clubs and transform non-sporting venues into vibrant community sports clubs.

“It’s great to see RHSC join the long list of successful clubs to benefit from this fund.” Community and voluntary organisations, councils and schools can bid for a share of £5m.

To find out more and bid, visit www.sportengland.org/inspiredfacilities

Don’t miss out on all the latest breaking news where you live.

Here are four ways you can be sure you’ll be amongst the first to know what’s going on.

1) Make our website your homepage at www.ryeandbattleobserver.co.uk/

2) Like our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/RyeandBattleObserver

3) Follow us on Twitter @RyeObs

4) Register with us by clicking on ‘sign in’ (top right corner). You can then receive our daily newsletter AND add your point of view to stories that you read here.

And do share with your family and friends - so they don’t miss out!

The Rye and Battle Observer - always the first with your local news.

Be part of it.